Malaysian PM in Gaza

Malaysian Prime Minister
Najib Razak
has visited the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on what he called a humanitarian mission but which Hamas portrayed as a defiant stand against Israeli restrictions on Gaza.

“This is an Islamic declaration for breaking the Israeli siege on Gaza," said Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, who received Mr Razak, his wife and his foreign minister at the Rafah crossing point between Gaza and Egypt. Although the restrictions have been eased recently, most exports from Gaza are still banned.

Mr Haniya said he considered the visit “a Palestinian, Arab and Islamic response" to a visit by Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu
to the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

Mr Haniya said the Western Wall, known to Muslims as Al Buraq, was “an Arab and Islamic wall" and added, “Jerusalem is Islamic".

In his brief visit, Mr Razak laid the stone of a college his country is financing and signed an agreement with the Hamas government to rebuild the prime minister’s office, which Israel destroyed in November.

Mr Razak called on the Palestinians to reconcile, saying he hoped a recent thaw between Hamas and Fatah, the rival Palestinian faction that controls the West Bank, would lead to a unity government. In May, Hamas and Fatah agreed on a series of measures that pave the way for new elections.

But the tensions between Hamas and Fatah persist. Fatah leader President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the visit of Mr Razak, who is the first leader of a non-Arab Muslim state to visit Gaza since Hamas took full control there in 2007.

“The visit constitutes a harm to the Palestinian representation, boosts the division and does not serve the Palestinian interests," he said.

Related Quotes

Company Profile

In October, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the emir of Qatar, became the first head of state to visit Gaza under Hamas’s rule. And in November Prime Minister Hesham Qandil of Egypt visited Gaza for a few hours during the fighting between Israel and Hamas.